Listening to our Customers

If you have been following us on Twitter or Facebook lately, you’ve probably seen us asking for your input on many different aspects of the store, including vegetarian and vegan products you love and would like to see in our stores. Since we first opened, vegetarian options have been one of the most common dietary requests we receive from customers, second only to gluten-free products.

In January, based on customer input, we added new gluten-free products to our range and made them easier to find in our stores. To kick off the discussion about improving our vegetarian options, we invited a group of customers over to our home office to share with us what kinds of food they look for in our stores as well as their ideas for fresh&easy vegetarian/vegan items.


We had a really great and informative conversation and we want to thank all of these bloggers for spending their evening talking about food with us! We learned a lot from you, as always.

A big thank you to:

Nhershoes
Newlywife
Sweatpantsmom
All things food

We still would love more feedback on what vegetarians or vegans would like to see in our stores, so please leave us a comment here on the blog and let us know what items you would like to be able to get at your local Fresh & Easy!

Cheers!

~Sallie

Eat well at Fresh & Easy with our new meals

Our customers told us they love our prepared meals, but wished we offered some with less calories, sodium and fat. We’re happy to report that we have been hard at work creating nutritionally balanced meals - called "eatwell" - and you can now find them in our stores! Eatwell gives you more nutritious options without having to compromise on quality or flavor.

The eatwell products you can now find on our shelves include ready-made meals, soups, salads sandwiches and sushi. We've displayed some of the nutritional information on the front of the package, and each product in the line has no more than 25 percent of the total daily values for calories, fat, saturated fat and sodium. And of course, since they’re fresh&easy brand, they’re only made with ingredients you can pronounce. Make sure to keep an eye out, since soon we’ll be introducing even more eatwell items!



Before launching these new products in stores, we asked local bloggers to join us at our home office to find out what they thought of them. A big thank you to all our blogger friends who came out for the tasting!



We could go on and on about how excited we are about these products, but it’s probably more interesting to see what our customers think:

SueBob's Snackish Blog
Bern Baby Bern
Random Walk Down Mommy Street
Rockin Mama
Funny Yellow Mom
Newly Wife
Temple of Fresh & Easy
N Her Shoes
Greenery in Mommyhood
Dine 909
The Frugal Diva
Traded my BMW for a Minivan
NEW! Sweatpants Mama

We are thrilled the eatwell products have received such a positive response so far and we’re eager to find out what you think too! Leave us a comment and let us know if you enjoyed eating well :)

Cheers,
Sallie

Listening to you – it’s a piece of cake!

We really love hearing from you. We love getting your comments about what you like and what you think we should improve. When we first set out to design and build Fresh & Easy, we went out and asked people what they wanted from a grocery store. Now, just a few short years later listening is still a huge part of how we run our company and we’re happy to report we have many ways to connect with you – through our website, Twitter, Customer Favorites and Kitchen Table polls, and now Facebook.

But it’s not just about taking the time to listen to your comments – it’s about figuring out a way to respond. Take for example the case of the fresh&easy Gourmet Chocolate Cupcakes.

Oakley, creator of the independent fan blog Temple of Fresh & Easy, bites into the sweet success of bringing back the fan favorite.

When we discontinued these cupcakes due to shipping and distribution issues, our in-boxes were immediately flooded with feedback from customers who missed their chocolaty goodness. We heard everything from “I cannot live without my chocolate cupcakes” to “I am devastated the cupcakes are no longer in the stores.” So we quickly figured out a way to get the cupcakes back on our shelves in just three weeks.

We also recently launched several more gluten free products and you might have noticed that we brought back and added new fresh&easy baking mixes, all as a direct response to customer feedback.


So as you bite into that chocolate cupcake or bake that vanilla bean cake, go right ahead and thank yourself and your neighbors. And keep the feedback and ideas coming, because we’re listening.

Cheers!
~Sallie

Gluten-Free at Fresh & Easy

We’re excited to report that we are introducing more gluten-free products to our range over the next few months and are currently offering hundreds of items in our stores that are made without gluten-containing ingredients!

Customers told us they wanted more gluten-free products to choose from and to easily identify which ones were gluten-free; and we listened. Just look for the maroon and green icon next to notable gluten-free products in our stores. Next time you’re in, ask your Kitchen Table attendant for a full list or just download it from our website at www.freshandeasy.com/glutenfree.


We hope you enjoy the new tasty gluten-free items in our stores and as always, we would love your feedback as we continue expanding the range!

Cheers!

Sallie

Fresh & Easy now in Fresno!

We’re excited to share that yesterday we opened our first stores in Fresno, CA with the help of Mayor Ashley Swearengin, Councilmembers Mike Dages, Andreas Borgeas, Larry Westerlund and Blong Xiong, Congressman Jim Costa and Marlene Murphey from the Fresno Redevelopment Agency. We opened our doors in Fresno at Cedar & Nees, downtown at Tulare & R, and in Clovis at Shaw & Willow and were happy to meet our new neighbors. Thank you to everyone who came out to celebrate with us!



Check out a video of the Mayor’s speech at the grand opening of the downtown Fresno location.



There was such a great positive response from our new neighbors in Fresno that we thought we’d pass along what they’re saying about their new neighborhood market.



Blog Posts:

Fresno Famous
Central Valley Moms
Fres-Know
Fresno Beehive
Fresno Biz Journal
The Fresnan
Lyndsay Lou
The Lulu
Vida en el valle blogs

Some Twit-Pics from tweeter @SmokeyBehr here and here

If you have a blog post, tweet, twit-pic or video you would like to share with us, please be sure to leave a link in the comment section!

Cheers!
SallieB

more fresh&easy stores opening!

Today we celebrated with our new neighbors in Pasadena the grand opening of our 121st store at California & Lake.

Here are some photos and a video from today's event!





You can see more pictures of the opening event today on our flickr page.

Be sure to keep an eye out, because we have three other stores opening this month!
Two in Santa Barbara County and a store in Oxnard all open July 29th and our Delano store will be opening its doors on August 19th. For details on these openings, be sure to check out our What's New section of our website.

Pasadena, thank you so much for the warm welcome. We are delighted to join the neighborhood!

~Cheers,
Sallie

following the customer at fresh&easy

"follow the customer" is a phrase we use a lot, to describe the way we do business.

The needs of customers after all are always evolving - think about your own lives - so what could be simpler than just listening to what would help, and then organizing yourself to deliver it. That way, year-in, year-out, your shopping trip is always getting better.

That's exactly what fresh&easy is all about. It was designed by listening to people, and since opening 18 mths ago, it's been evolving on the basis of customer feedback.

A constant request has been for more fresh&easy products, so we continue to innovate in this area. We've recently added, for example, quiche (fresh from our kitchen), pita chips, and gourmet hamburger buns, to name just a few - all of course with no artificial colors, flavors or preservatives, and no added transfat.

However, as the economic climate has got harder, customers have also been asking for help in making their budgets go further, so we've been organizing ourselves to do just that.

Already, you can count on at least 6 different packs of produce at just 98c every week, to help keep fresh produce affordable, and we've introduced stronger promotions, together with a weekly flyer.

But we've also been asked for more family packs, so these are now starting to come into the stores. The family-sized meals, fresh from our kitchen, are one example we've recently introduced, but you can now get bigger sizes of your favorite detergents and cleaners, and across the store we've many more to come.

On the back of customer feedback on our Buxted meat lines and Taurino, we're also introducing many more new brands over the next few weeks that offer outstanding value - all national brand quality, at unbelievably low prices, and only available at fresh&easy. For example, look out for our Mothers Joy breakfast cereals launching next week.

Finally, we're also adding a few more national brands to our stores, in response to specific requests from customers, to make their shopping trips more complete - Guerrero tortillas are one example.

All this adds up to more than 1000 extra products coming into our stores over the summer. And by organizing ourselves, we can do this without taking anything away - by adding extra shelves, and fine-tuning how we use our space.

So by "following the customer", we end up with a better shopping trip. It's good for us, and it's good for our customers.

And that, surely, is how it should be.....

fresh&easy opens 120th store

We just opened our 120th store at Durango Dr. & El Capitan Way in Las Vegas and our new neighbors stormed in just after the ribbon cutting! Here are some photos…

Good Food in Frugal Times

Just because we are in a recession doesn't mean that we should have to compromise the quality and taste of our groceries. Staying at home and cooking is a simple way to save money, but it can be overwhelming to plan meals in advance and around deals. We pulled together some helpful links that have tips to help save in these tough economic times.

Here are some of our favorite blogs that battle the recession blues with good food:

• Recession Recipes - Take two inspired cooks and mix with seasonal ingredients, recent deals from many stores and add a splash of creativity and you have recipes that are not only recession proof, but downright beautiful.
• LA Cheapskate - Cindy scouts for deals and plans a whole weekly meal plan around what she finds. Have leftover ham? She's got you covered on ways to get more meals for your buck.
• CookThink - Plug in the ingredients you already have at home and it will come up with a gourmet recipe you. Its perfect for those nights when you can't think of anything to do with that pineapple, those pork chops from the freezer, and the can of diced tomatoes from the back of the pantry.

Some more excellent blogs to visit when looking for frugal tips:

• Green Stew
• Frugal Mommy
• Self Reliant Sisters
Frugal Girls

• Be CentsAble
The Cheapos

• The Frugal Diva

Some Fresh & Easy insider tips:

• Each Wednesday we launch new extra low price specials across our stores. They are updated on our website where you can view all the deals by downloading your weekly flyer for your area.
• In different aisles throughout our stores you will find our newest promotion “Buy more & save."
• Each day we have special mark downs in our clearance section at the end of our refrigerated aisle.
• If you haven’t already, sign up for our Friends of Fresh & Easy emails and we’ll send you our latest news and exclusive offers.

What are your special tips for saving money and sources for good tips and deals? We are always listening, so please share your thoughts!

~Sallie

Family packs at fresh & easy

We've always followed a very simple approach - listen to what your customers want, and then try and deliver it, better than anybody else.

That's why we encourage customers to give us feedback - through our website or comment cards - and why we carry out exit surveys around our stores every month.

So when customers told us they enjoy our prepared meals, but would like to see more family sized meals, we took action!

We’ve just introduced a selection of 6 new prepared meals suitable for a family of four, including favorites like Lasagna with Meat Sauce or our Chicken & Bacon Mac & Cheese. And with no trans fats and no artificial colors or flavors, we’ve introduced these dinners at just $8.00! Now families have more options without having to compromise on quality or price.

There's several other areas where our customers have asked us for larger pack sizes, so again we're busy working on them. Some have already hit our stores, like bigger packs of chicken breasts, and Huggies diapers.

It's a simple approach, but it means our shopping trip is always improving for customers. After all, everyday our customers vote with their feet, and that surely is how it should be...

Next time you’re in, be sure to check them out…



Lasagna with Meat Sauce, 44 oz. & Chicken & Broccoli Pasta Alfredo, 40 oz



Spaghetti with Turkey Meatballs, 45 oz. & Chicken Teriyaki with Rice & Vegetables, 45 oz.



Chicken & Bacon Macaroni & Cheese, 40 oz. & Chicken Burritos with Green and Red Sauce, 40 oz.